Dior's New Backstage Collection Includes A Foundation With 40 Shades

At Dior’s Cruise show in Chantilly on Friday, the brand launched its new Dior Backstage beauty collection - an extensive, professional-standard make-up collection inspired by backstage artistry and designed by creative and image director for Dior Makeup, Peter Philips. The collection is available in a flash sale at Dior.com immediately after the show and across the weekend, and then launches officially on June 15.

“We didn’t want to launch an intimidating pro line, instead we wanted to use our professional expertise from backstage to make women’s lives easier,“ Philips told us backstage at the show in Chantilly. “I wanted it to be practical. Yes, for make-up artists, but also for all women. Women who want to be beautiful and beautified, but without having to go to a masterclass. A professional approach but with an ease.”

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At the heart of the collection is the new Dior Backstage Face And Body Foundation, which comes in an impressive 40 shades based around 16 different levels of intensity and six skin undertones - olive, peach, cool - to ensure a perfect match. With a long-wearing and waterproof formula it nonetheless offers a radiant and natural-looking finish.

“As a make-up artist I’ll often mix several foundation shades together to create the perfect colour for a model’s skin. But that’s my job. So I thought, wouldn’t it be great if that girl could go and find that exact shade on the counter? It shouldn’t be a problem for a woman to find her shade,” he said. “I remember in the old days working with Karen Elson, I had to mix a shade especially for her. And she wanted it so much in the end I gave it to her! And for darker-skinned girls, it can be hard to find those shades. And because here in Paris we are really mostly white, we went to all our different markets to get feedback on what they wanted from a foundation, all around the world. And that was the idea.”

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Joining the foundation is a full range of brushes, as well as the Universal Pro Palettes. Comprising adjustable and buildable formulas to adapt to a range of skin tones, the line is composed of two eye palettes, two brow palettes, a lip palette, a contour palette and a highlighting palette. Everything is intuitive, versatile and genuinely useful - which, of course, is what you would expect from a man for whom efficiency, longevity and perfection is key.

“They’re basics, really beautiful essentials. That’s how we wanted to start it, and then we’ll see how people react. There are plenty of possibilities for expansion,” Philips continued. “In each case, the shades are arranged from the softest to the strongest and each product’s functions are explained on the packaging.”

Oh yes, the packaging. All of the products are housed in lightweight, transparent compacts and bottles, making the contents immediately visible from the outside and ensuring that nothing is too heavy to be slipped into a handbag or gym kit. The foundation bottle is squeezable, so that you can dispense the perfect amount of product with ease, and the brushes have been designed with the eye of a true expert.

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And that’s what makes this collection so exciting. In an era where most of us have become our own make-up artist thanks to YouTube tutorials, social media and ever-evolving formulations, who better to guide us on the make-up we need than a man who spends the majority of his time transforming, enhancing and defining the faces of some of the world’s most famous models? Now's the time to go pro.